Lomas says Saints are ‘massive underdogs’

ST JOHNSTONE manager Steve Lomas played down his side’s good Clydesdale Bank Premier League record against Celtic this season as he awaits a visit from the champions tonight.

Saints beat Neil Lennon’s men 2-1 at McDiarmid Park in September and while they lost 5-0 when the two sides met in the Scottish Communities League Cup quarter-final at Parkhead the following month, Lomas men grabbed a 1-1 draw in the SPL when they returned to the east end of Glasgow in November.

However, the Northern Irishman will not reflect too long on the four points won against a side who are fresh from a 6-2 hammering of Dundee United at the weekend.

Lomas said: “We are not looking at it like that, we are looking at playing a very good Celtic team. They have players like Gary Hooper, Kris Commons, Joe Ledley, Victor Wanyama, Anthony Stokes – the list is endless.

“We will go into the game massive underdogs and it will take another mammoth effort from everyone if we are to get anything.

“When you play the Old Firm you have got to be at your maximum.

“You have to be disciplined, be brave in and out of possession, have a little bit of luck and take your chances when they come along. If Celtic get their noses in front then it is very difficult. They bounced back from the Juventus defeat to thrash Dundee United and they can do that against anybody on their day. But we are one of eight or nine teams who want to be up there behind them and we are looking forward to the game.”

Lomas, though, admits he is still puzzled by Ross County manager Derek Adams’ analysis of the Dingwall side’s 1-0 home win over Saints in on Saturday, which left the Perth side in sixth place.

The former West Ham and Manchester City midfielder said: “I read some of Derek’s quotes and he said his side dominated. I’m not sure where he got that from. I suppose football is all about opinions but their keeper was man of the match. On any other day we could have got three points and it just goes to show you that stats can lie. On every stat we were ahead but in the one stat that mattered, they got the goal. All credit to them but I thought we were the better team.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.